Gardenerella vaginalis
A Microbial Biorealm page on the genus Gardenerella vaginalis
Classification
Higher order taxa
Bacteria; Actinobacteria; Actinobacteridae; Bifidobacteriales; Bifidobacteriaceae; Gardnerella
Species
Gardnerella vaginalis
Description and significance
Describe the appearance, habitat, etc. of the organism, and why it is important enough to have its genome sequenced. Describe how and where it was isolated. Include a picture or two (with sources) if you can find them.
Gardnerella vaginalis, the only species of its genus and formerly known as Haemophilus vaginalis and Corynebacterium vaginale, is a facultative anaerobic, nonmotile, pleomorphic gram-negative to gram-variable rod. It is a well-recognized colonizer of the female genital tract and survives high pH(2). It also survives poorly in human urine at 37 degrees C (3).
Genome structure
Describe the size and content of the genome. How many chromosomes? Circular or linear? Other interesting features? What is known about its sequence? Does it have any plasmids? Are they important to the organism's lifestyle?
Cell structure and metabolism
Describe any interesting features and/or cell structures; how it gains energy; what important molecules it produces.
Gardnerella vaginalis is a gram-variable microbe, and therefore displays both, gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria characteristics. It has a very thin cell wall with a characteristic gram-negative staining pattern and is unequivocally gram-positive in its ultrastructural characteristics and chemical composition (4). The cell wall is comprised of straight chain saturated and unsaturated non-hydroxylated fatty acids with hexadecanoic acid and octadecenoic acid along with major amounts of alanine, glycine, glutamic acid and lysine(5). G. vaginalis has a very complex metabolism. Gardnerella vaginalis are facultative anaerobes, which means that they can metabolism glucose (and other simple sugars) in under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions. Under the aerobic metabolism of glucose, G. vaginalis forms lactic acid and acetic acid. However, under anaerobic conditions, the metabolism of glucose yields only lactic acid.
Ecology
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Pathology
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Application to Biotechnology
Does this organism produce any useful compounds or enzymes? What are they and how are they used?
Current Research
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References
Edited by student of Rachel Larsen
1. Joe Bischoff, Mikhail Domrachev, Scott Federhen, Carol Hotton, Detlef Leipe, Vladimir Soussov, Richard Sternberg, Sean Turner. "Gardnerella Vaginalis" <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/Browser/wwwtax.cgi?id=2702>
2. S M Smith, T Ogbara, and R H Eng. "Involvement of Gardnerella vaginalis in urinary tract infections in men." J Clin Microbiol Volume 30. p. 1575–1577. <http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=265332>
